In seasons 3 and 4 of shadowlands the tier set bonuses made blood dk infinitely better than all the other tanks. At high key levels, unless you were a blood dk, you weren’t going to be progressing. Once again, throughout the dragonflight beta, people told blizzard that warrior is way to strong.
They did very small adjustments, but dragonflight came out with 10% dr nerf across the board, which really should have only affected warriors. We are now seeing warriors dominating the leaderboards of up to 50% of all tanks played being warriors. On almost all dungeons they do the most dps out of all tanks, they are the tankiest tank, have lots of mobility, and have very good self sustain - they literally have it all.
Other tanks have asked to have a bone thrown to them, and it has basically fell on def ears. The buffs other tanks have gotten have been very small 2-4% buffs that basically equate to nothing.
My question to blizzard: Why did you not learn from seasons 3 and 4 of shadowlands about making one tank infinitely stronger than all the other tanks? I realize there will always be a meta, and ppl will gravitate towards stronger classes. But why would 1 class be this disproportionately better than all the other tanks and not see any balance changes? Or why not bring the other tanks into line with prot warriors?
They have no problem balancing. There have been a ton of balance changes since launch, but they haven’t touched warrior to bring it down in power, or brought any tanks up to its level, or even near its level.
I ended up playing my pally a lot more than my DK and I’m a die hard DK main. Just didn’t like the playstyle of S3/S4 blood and I wasn’t good at it. Prot Warrior is just FOTM and it will pass like all things do. Am I playing Prot Warrior? Nope because I don’t like to play it.
The fact is those people you see at the top of the leaderboard will play whatever class is the tip of the spear. If you base your playtime around that then you’re not going to enjoy the game. Play what you like and you’ll get to where you want to be. Make friends and run with them.
“I looked in the top 20 keys done in the world and didn’t see my tank, so evidently it’s bad and Blizzard needs to immediately hit the most prevalent tank in the kneecaps with the nerf bat.”
I’ve leveled all the tanks to 70 except monk so far. Warrior is so much stronger than all the others it’s not even comparable. Blood dk is pretty strong too, but still gets smacked hard - you just can heal it back up. Warrior’s hp barely moves until you get to 15s (not being hyperbolic).
While my prot war is tuned stronger I’ve never had more fun than DF prot pal. The changes made the build/spend a bit more methodical. An additional DR in Tyr, CDR on both wings and kings. I’ve never played a pp where I wasn’t afraid to “waste” bubble taunt or kings. The cds were just too long to use unless absolutely necessary.
It’s an entirely different class now. Let em fly. Press your big buttons!! Because you have MULTIPLE other buttons to press while that one is on CD. It’s just a totally different feeling than BFA or SL. Super fun.
So, while I do wish all other tanks were brought up to War equivalence, it’s still crazy fun. I’m having a really good time making my own groups. until Monday I was sub 390ilvl. The spike damage has been real in 16/17s but I deff don’t feel undertuned. Making your own groups unlocks this game regardless of the meta or other gatekeeping.
Ive always detested warriors as the most boring and generic class in a fantasy mmo but man, this expansion had me bit by the warrior bug and im in love. Current prot warrior as my main and never looking back
Paladin is fun, but stuck in a weird spot. So many mechanics require lots of movement and positioning very quickly, and a lot of your defense being behind consecrate makes it difficult to stay sturdy in high keys. I’ve also felt the loss of HP to avenger’s shield made it feel really clunky. Paladin is in a decent spots, as are all the tanks (although druids IS struggling), they are just nowhere near the power level of warrior - which feels really bad. Most of the other tanks are very close to each other in power, and then you have warrior which is in another dimension.
Wot. Prot warrior has been the best tank in multiple expansions since then, and sprinkled in multiple seasons. I don’t want prot warrior to be bad, I just want other tanks to be as good, or them at least tuned down to the level of other tanks.
I don’t want any tank to be better than the other in a significant degree to where you are gimping yourself by not playing them - such as not playing blood dk last season, or prot war this season. I don’t mink a 5% difference or so - but this big of a glaring difference is extremely toxic.
Turns out Blood DK with permanent rune weapon and +40% strength is actually pretty broken lmao.
There would need to be some serious tuning for prot to be in line with the other specs. They sit in bstance most of the time while taking offensive talents still pulling stuff that would oneshot other specs. Pretty amazing to watch actually.
